CHAPTER 6: ATTACKS ON CULTURAL HERITAGE

Chapter 6. Attacks on cultural heritage

CONTENTS

I. Introduction

II. International Legal Framework for Attacks on Cultural Heritage

III. Key Findings

1. Destruction

2. Erasure and Revisionism

3. Obstruction of Access

IV. Conclusion

I. Introduction

Azerbaijan's aspiration to “wipe Armenia off the face of the Earth”¹ affects not only Armenian people, but also physical symbols of their existence as a culture and society. To this end, Azerbaijan has carried out a multi-pronged attack on Armenian cultural heritage that has involved destruction, erasure and revisionism, and obstructing access to cultural sites:

1. Destruction. Azerbaijani forces have destroyed Armenian churches, cemeteries, museums, and monuments during the 2020 war and afterwards as they took control of additional territory. 
2. Erasure and revisionism. As a matter of state policy, Azerbaijan has imposed revisionist history of Armenian cultural monuments that have come under their control by erasing Armenian writing and markings from structures. Meanwhile, high-level officials have publicly expounded revisionist discourse. The revisionism has extended to a successful campaign to rename and publish false historical data about Armenian churches on Google Maps, including sites known to and visited by our team.
3. Obstructing access. Intimidation by Azerbaijani forces near border communities have effectively blocked residents and pilgrims from reaching places of worship.

Academic researchers with Monument Watch, a project out of Yerevan State University that has monitored over 200 monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh, call this multi-pronged assault on Armenian culture and history in Nagorno-Karabakh “an occupation of heritage.”² There have been over 180 attacks amidst this occupation after the 44-Day War as of July 2023, according to Monument Watch researchers. “Azerbaijan is trying to destroy and change identity,” Haykuhi Muradyan, Lecturer in cultural studies at Yerevan State University and one of the lead investigators behind Monument Watch, said in an interview with the University Network for Human Rights (University Network or UNHR).³

These actions have prompted international observers and civil society representatives to express grave concerns about the preservation of Armenian ties to historical and religious sites now under Azerbaijani control. In December 2021, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) instructed Azerbaijan to “take all necessary measures to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage, including but not limited to churches and other places of worship, monuments, landmarks, cemeteries and artifacts.”⁴ Azerbaijan did not comply with this decision: Two years and four months after the ICJ ruling, the European Parliament passed a resolution stating that the

Further, the resolution strongly condemned “Azerbaijan’s continued policy of erasing and denying the Armenian cultural heritage in and around Nagorno-Karabakh” and recognized that the “erasure of the Armenian cultural heritage is part of a wider pattern of a systematic, state-level policy of Armenophobia, historical revisionism and hatred towards Armenians promoted by the Azerbaijani authorities.”⁶

II. International Legal Framework for Attacks on Cultural Heritage

According to the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (“World Heritage Convention”), cultural heritage refers to monuments, buildings, and sites that are of “outstanding universal value” from a historic, artistic, scientific aesthetic, ethnological, or anthropological perspective.⁸ Cultural heritage may also be intangible. According to the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, “traditions, customs and practices, vernacular or other languages, forms of artistic expression and folklore” are also forms of cultural heritage.⁹ 

Various international legal instruments contain obligations requiring States to protect cultural heritage. Azerbaijan and Armenia are State Parties to the World Heritage Convention, which imposes duties on signatories to protect cultural heritage found within their territory and others. Signatories are bound “to take the appropriate legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and rehabilitation of this heritage.”¹⁰ Furthermore, State Parties cannot take “deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage . . . situated on the territory of other States Parties to this Convention.”¹¹

Azerbaijan is further bound by the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which Azerbaijan is a Party. Article 4 of the Convention states that Parties must “undertake to respect cultural property” and refrain from any uses “likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict.” State Parties must also “undertake to prohibit, prevent and, if necessary, put a stop to any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property.”¹² The Convention also imposes an obligation to safeguard property during peacetime.¹³ The Second Protocol to the Convention (1999) adds additional obligations on States to “do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are not cultural property” and “take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack” so as to avoid damage to cultural property.¹⁴

Customary international law provides further guidance and protections regarding cultural heritage.¹⁵ The International Committee of the Red Cross has identified several rules of customary law that protect cultural property: Rule 10 states that civilian objects, including places of worship, are “protected against attack,” while Rules 38, 40, 147 provide further protections for cultural property.¹⁶ Rule 156 explains how attacks on cultural or religious property can be considered a war crime.¹⁷

Finally, though human rights treaties do not articulate an explicit right to cultural heritage, several provisions within these instruments bestow negative and positive obligations on States regarding cultural heritage. Article 27(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,¹⁸ Article 15(1)(a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,¹⁹ Article 13(c) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,²⁰ and Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)²¹ codify the right to participate in cultural life (or in the case of ICERD, the right to participate in cultural activities), while freedom of religion or thought enshrined in  Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights²² and Article 9 of of the European Convention on Human Rights²³ provide safeguards to spaces dedicated to religion. In Resolution 33/20, the Human Rights Council recognizes that the right to cultural life includes “the ability to access and enjoy cultural heritage.”²⁴

III. Key Findings

1. Destruction

Recent upticks in destruction of cultural heritage only build on Azerbaijan’s history of antagonism toward Armenian culture. Between 1997 and 2011, a staggering 98% of Armenian cultural heritage sites in the Azerbaijani region of Nakhchivan were completely destroyed, according to Cornell University’s Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW), a research initiative led by archaeologists at Cornell and Purdue Universities that uses satellite imagery to monitor and document endangered and damaged heritage sites.²⁵ Azerbaijan’s attacks on Armenian cultural heritage have intensified during and since the 44-Day War. Numerous sites in Nagorno-Karabakh, including cemeteries, churches, and the ancient city of Tigranakert, have been continually threatened, damaged, or destroyed by Azerbaijani forces during and after the conflict.²⁶ This phenomenon has been widely documented by international and Armenian research institutions; a UNHR review of numerous sources found documentation of at least 40 cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh that had been damaged, destroyed, or desecrated, wholly or in part, some on multiple different occasions, since the region came under Azerbaijani control. Another several dozen sites have been threatened or are identified as being at risk of similar destruction.²⁷

A stark example of sweeping destruction of cultural heritage is the city of Hadrut, also host to some of the most gruesome displays of executions of civilians during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. After emptying the town of its Armenian inhabitants, Azerbaijani forces took to destroying Armenian religious and cultural structures. According to Monument Watch's monitoring of Hadrut, satellite images show that between May and June 2021, nearly the entire Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex in Azokh village was destroyed, and the memorial itself was missing.²⁸ In addition, videos posted on Telegram showed the memorials to the victims of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War and World War II covered in graffiti.²⁹

There are dozens of other examples of destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh.³⁰ The destruction extends to Armenia as well, where UNHR researchers saw a cemetery in Jermuk, which we visited in March 2023, destroyed by Azerbaijani shelling from Azerbaijani's assault on Armenia in September 2022.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has expressed concern for the state of Armenian heritage sites. In a resolution on “Humanitarian consequences of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan / Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” adopted on September 27, 2021, PACE stated, “The long running conflict has had a catastrophic impact on the cultural heritage and property of the region, for which both Armenia and Azerbaijan have a responsibility.”³¹ PACE condemned

Concern for the state of Armenian heritage in Azerbaijani-controlled areas has been voiced by other international observers. The United States Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom Report for 2021 echoed the concerns highlighted by PACE. Additionally, it shared that the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan “advocated at the highest levels of government for the protection of religious and cultural sites in the territories newly returned to Azerbaijani control after the 2020 fighting.”³³

2. Erasure and Revisionism

Azerbaijani officials have invoked the concepts of “Western Azerbaijan” and “Caucasian Albania” to deny the historical existence of autochthonous Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and present-day Armenia, as well as to overwrite evidence of the presence of Armenian culture and societies in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. 

As a matter of state policy, Azerbaijan erased Armenian writing and markings from Armenian cultural monuments and churches that have come under their control after the 44-Day War in 2020. In February 2022, Azerbaijan's Minister of Culture had announced plans to establish a working group which would be responsible for removing “the so-called traces written by Armenians on Albanian religious temples.”³⁴ The Minister laid out the policy with great clarity: 

We have inspected those places with the working group members, and after the inspection, we will consider our next steps. Those places are not yet completely safe. After clearing the areas of mines, we will take both local and international experts there and document the Armenian forgery and changes and present them to the international community.³⁵  

In this way, Azerbaijan has perpetrated “not just physical destruction,” a Monument Watch researcher told UNHR, “but Aliyev speaks of how Armenians have ‘destroyed the Albanian heritage’. … It is threatening when the leader of the contrary side speaks about Albanian culture (in an attempt) to [deprive] Armenian identity of this heritage.”

According to authors of the 2023 book Caucasian Albania,³⁶

The “Albanianising” approach, first put forward by the Soviet-Azerbaijanian historian Ziya Bunyatov in the 1950s and 60s, has now acquired new topicality by being instrumentalised in abnegating the Armenian background of the disputed territory of Karabakh. …  To shed light on this debate, which seems to have been fought mostly on the backs of the Armenians with their long-lasting presence, historically irrefutable, in the disputed region of Karabakh, we deemed it overdue to counter the (definitely not harmless) myths on Caucasian Albania that are swirling around today, with scientifically sound and proven facts.³⁷

The “Albanianizing approach” has had observers from Armenia on high alert since the end of the 44-Day War. On September 21, 2021, the day after Azerbaijan's decisive assault and takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Center for Truth and Justice issued an “Urgent Call to Protect Amaras Monastery from Cultural Erasure” as Azerbaijani forces took over the land where it stands. By October 6, Azerbaijani television was broadcasting a program claiming the Gandzasar, Amaras and Dadivank monasteries as “prime examples of Caucasian Albanian architecture.”³⁸ The consequences of these claims can be far-reaching, Monument Watch warns,

Revisionism and erasure of evidence of the presence of Armenian society and culture in Nagorno-Karabakh have permeated the digital sphere as well. For example, UNHR researchers traveled to Aghavno, a village in Nagorno-Karabakh located at the entrance to the Lachin Corridor, in March of 2022. A resident of the village, while giving a tour of the village church, described how he witnessed its construction, roughly 20 years prior. Azerbaijani forces took control of Aghavno village several months after UNHR's visit. The 20-year old structure is now labeled “Ancient Albanian Church” on Google Maps. This is far from an isolated case. In January 2022, Monoment Watch warned that Google might remove Armenian toponyms from its Maps platform, result of concerted efforts by Azerbaijani officials to persuade Google to “reject the Armenian names of the territories of Karabakh under the control of Azerbaijan, presenting the 'official' Azerbaijani list of geographical names.”⁴⁰

Azerbaijan's policy of historical revisionism has extended beyond Nagorno-Karabakh to present-day Armenia. Its promotion of the concept of “Western Azerbaijan” since the end of the 44-Day War reveals an agenda for similar revisionist attack on the essential relationship between Armenian ethnic identity and the lands within what is today the Republic of Armenia. In remarks published on the official webpage of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev has stated,

The Azerbaijani head of state's messaging about Azerbaijan's historical right to present-day Armenia includes statements referencing Azerbaijani historical and religious monuments and draws parallels with Nagorno-Karabakh: “Western Azerbaijan is our historical land. . . . Unfortunately, as they did in Karabakh, the Armenians razed all our historical and religious monuments in Western Azerbaijan to the ground. They wanted to erase the historical heritage of the Azerbaijani people, but they failed.”⁴²

Aliyev gave the above-cited speech in a meeting with an organization called “Community of Western Azerbaijan,” which, until recently, was called the Azerbaijani Refugee Union, in December 2022. Since then, there has been much activity on the subject of “Western Azerbaijan,” among it, the decision of the presidency of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan to open three new departments: "History of Western Azerbaijan" at the Bakikhanov Institute of History, "Western Azerbaijan Folklore" at the Folklore Institute, and "Western Azerbaijan Toponymy" at the Nasimi Institute of Linguistics.⁴³ Moreover, Azerbaijan has begun to embed the idea of Western Azerbaijan abroad, organizing events like the “Return to Western Azerbaijan at the International Level" conference in Tbilisi in December 2023.⁴⁴ These actions, and the international community's receptiveness to them, constitute a serious threat to the preservation of the essential historical and cultural connection between Armenian identity and Armenia.

These revisionist narratives are highly connected to incitement to hatred; in fact, they are even more pernicious, since the destruction caused by rhetoric is less obvious and visible as physical attacks on churches, museums, artifacts, and otherwise. Such profound revisionism threatens to gradually sever the historical association between Armenian culture and the lands and structures that have fallen under Azerbaijani control. Together with obstructing access to Armenian cultural heritage (see below), destruction, erasure and revisionism trigger a chain reaction that could lead to erasure of collective cultural memory. Thus, Azerbaijan's assaults on the physical representations of Armenian culture and historical presence also threaten Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia's intangible cultural property, or the traditions and living expressions inherited from ancestors and passed on to descendants.⁴⁵

3. Obstruction of Access

Another concerning trend in Azerbaijan's practices related to Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh has been the obstruction of access to residents and pilgrims. In its 2021 report on international religious freedom, the U.S. Department of State cited reports by media and the Armenian Apostolic Church that “no Armenian pilgrims had been permitted visits to any religious site in Azerbaijani-controlled territory (where no Russian forces were present)” since May 2021.⁴⁶ One example of sites whose access has been totally or severely restricted is the medieval Dadivank Monastery in the district of Kalbajar (Karvachar in Armenian). According to the Armenian Apostolic Church, Azerbaijan had denied access to groups of pilgrims with Russian escorts to visit the monastery on two separate occasions in February and April 2021.⁴⁷ The State Department report elaborated, “Azerbaijani authorities cited COVID-19, flooding, and road damage as reasons for denying access to groups of pilgrims who were ready with Russian peacekeeper escorts to visit the monastery.”⁴⁸

Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor, beginning in December 2022 and intensifying through the state’s September 2023 military escalation, has further exacerbated Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians’ lack of access to their heritage and cultural sites. Due to the “impossibility of free movement,” Nagorno-Karabakh residents were denied “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of Armenians of Artsakh, their natural right to live in accordance with their ideas and cultural practices.”⁴⁹ In an interview with Monument Watch researchers in July 2023, they explained how cultural sites in border areas “are under the target of Azerbaijani forces; it’s difficult to use that heritage; the role of that heritage in community life has decreased because of the situation on the border.” Muradyan also recounted how the humanitarian crisis within Nagorno-Karabakh had become so dire that their Stepanakert-based colleague on the project “cannot go to the border sites because of blockade (and) lack of fuel, so it is difficult to do the monitoring of border monuments as well.”⁵⁰

IV. Conclusion

Azerbaijan has destroyed Armenian churches, cemeteries, museums, and monuments during the 2020 war and afterwards as they took control of additional territory. Intimidation by Azerbaijani forces near border communities has effectively blocked residents and pilgrims from reaching places of worship. As a matter of policy, Azerbaijan has imposed revisionist history of Armenian cultural monuments that have come under their control by erasing Armenian writing and markings from structures. Meanwhile, high-level officials have publicly expounded revisionist discourse. The revisionism has extended to a successful campaign to rename and publish false historical data about Armenian churches on Google Maps, including sites known to and visited by UNHR researchers. 

These violations relate to others by Azerbaijan described in this report. As evidenced above, Azerbaijani officials’ incitement to hatred against Armenians promoted, or was used as a justification for the destruction of cultural and religious buildings as well as the destruction of Armenian local history in Nagorno-Karabakh. The villainization of Armenians through the dangerous revisionist narratives of Caucasian Albania and Western Azerbaijan in turn serves to further fuel that ethnic hatred. Additionally, destruction, revision and erasure, and obstructed access to Armenian cultural sites have all exacerbated and been exacerbated by Azerbaijan forcing out the populations of Nagorno-Karabakh and border communities through bombardment, isolation, gruesome displays of violence, and constant intimidation. This interrelatedness of rights, and Azerbaijan’s violations of such rights, demonstrates these assaults on heritage are but one element of a broader campaign to totally empty the region of Armenian people, history, and culture alike.

Endnotes

1. Horizon Weekly. 2015. “Azerbaijani MP urges Turkish government to expel all Armenians.” Horizon Weekly Newspaper. https://horizonweekly.ca/am/66568-2/. The original interview appears to have been removed.

2. UNHR interview with Monument Watch researchers, Yerevan, July 31, 2023.

3. Ibid.

4. Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Armenia v. Azerbaijan), Provisional Measures, Order of 7 December 2021, I.C.J. Reports 2021, p. 361. https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/180/180-20211207-ORD-01-00-EN.pdf.

5. European Parliament. 2022. “JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh | RC-B9-0146/2022.” European Parliament. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2022-0146_EN.html.

6. Ibid.

7. Vardan, UNHR Interview in Yerevan, March 2022.

8. UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, art. 1, 16 November 1972, The United Nations, available at: https://whc.unesco.org/archive/convention-en.pdf. [hereinafter “World Heritage Convention”]

9. UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, 3 February 2016, A/HRC/31/59, available at: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/831612?ln=en

10. World Heritage Convention, art. 5

11. World Heritage Convention, art. 6

12. UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, art. 4, 14 May 1954, The Hague, available at: https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/1954_Convention_EN_2020.pdf 

13. Ibid, art. 3

14. UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, art. 7, 26 March 1999, The Hague, available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000130696

15. See Perez Leon Acevedo, Juan Pablo and Alves Pinto, Thiago Felipe, Enforcing Freedom of Religion or Belief in Cases Involving Attacks Against Buildings Dedicated to Religion: The Al Mahdi Case at the International Criminal Court (January 6, 2020). Berkeley Journal of International Law (BJIL), Vol. 37, No. 3, 2020, available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3519600

16. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law, rule 10, 38, 40, 147, 2005, Volume I: Rules, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5305e3de4.html [accessed 19 December 2023].

17. Ibid, rule 156

18. UN General Assembly, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 27, 10 December 1948, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/translations/english [hereinafter “UDHR”]

19. UN General Assembly, International Covenant on  Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 15, 16 December 1966, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights

20. UN General Assembly, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, art. 13, 18 December 1979, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-elimination-all-forms-discrimination-against-women [hereinafter “CEDAW”]

21. UN General Assembly, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, art. 5, 21 December 1965, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial [hereinafter ICERD]

22.  UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 18, 16 December 1966, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights

23. Council of Europe, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, art. 9, 1950, Council of Europe Treaty Series 005, Council of Europe, available at: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG

24. UN Human Rights Council, Resolution on Cultural Rights and the Protection of Cultural Heritage, A/HRC/RES/33/20, 6 October 2016, The United Nations, available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/227/55/PDF/G1622755.pdf?OpenElement

25. Caucasus Heritage Watch. 2023. “Silent Erasure: A Satellite Investigation of the Destruction of Armenian Cultural Heritage in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan.” ArcGIS StoryMaps. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/48703f664f2f467b8f4f42008d8c75da.

26. Maghakyan, Simon. 2020. “Cultural erasure may spark next Nagorno-Karabakh war.” Asia Times. https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/cultural-erasure-may-spark-next-nagorno-karabakh-war/.

27. “Alerts,” Monument Watch, accessed December 19, 2023, https://monumentwatch.org/en/alerts/; Lori Khatchadourian, Ian Lindsay, and Adam T. Smith, & Husik Ghulyan, “Caucasus Heritage Watch Report #6,” December 2023, https://indd.adobe.com/view/0da94550-19a5-4b85-a682-9666a644bb79.

28. “Destruction of the Memorial Complex in Azokh Village of Hadrut,” Monument Watch, August 28, 2021, https://monumentwatch.org/en/alerts/destruction-of-the-memorial-complex-in-azokh-village-of-hadrut/.

29. “Memorial Dedicated to the Victims of World War II and the First Artsakh War Was Desecrated in Azokh Village,” Monument Watch, May 11, 2022, https://monumentwatch.org/en/alerts/memorial-dedicated-to-the-victims-of-world-war-ii-and-the-first-artsakh-war-was-desecrated-in-azokh-village/.

30. See  https://caucasusheritage.cornell.edu/ and monumentwatch.org.

31. Parliamentary Assembly. 2021. “Res. 2391 - Resolution - Adopted text.” Humanitarian consequences of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. https://pace.coe.int/en/files/29483/html.

32. Parliamentary Assembly. 2021. “Res. 2391 - Resolution - Adopted text.” Humanitarian consequences of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. https://pace.coe.int/en/files/29483/html. 

33. Office of International Religious Freedom. 2022. “Azerbaijan 2021 International Religious Freedom Report.” U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AZERBAIJAN-2021-INTERNATIONAL-RELIGIOUS-FREEDOM-REPORT.pdf.

34. Report.az. 2022. “A working group was created for the restoration of Albanian religious temples, which were falsified by Armenians.” Report.az. https://report.az/medeniyyet-siyaseti/alban-dini-mebedlerinin-berpasi-ucun-isci-qrup-yaradilib/; Liakhov, Peter, and Ani Avetisyan. 2022. “The battle over Christian monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh.” OC Media. https://oc-media.org/features/the-battle-over-christian-monuments-in-nagorno-karabakh/.

35. “Working Group Set up to Restore Armenianized Albanian Temples,” Report News Agency, February 3, 2022, https://report.az/en/cultural-policy/working-group-set-up-to-restore-armenianized-temples-of-ancient-albania/.

36. A project funded by the European Research Council that aimed to present “an overview of the current state of research on the Caucasian 'Albanians' in an objective, scientifically sound manner. … not necessarily intended to reveal new scientific findings but rather to summarise approved knowledge.” “Caucasian Albania: An International Handbook,” in Caucasian Albania (De Gruyter Mouton, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110794687.

37. “Caucasian Albania,” v–vi.

38. “Azerbaijan’s Dangerous Statements and Initiatives,” Monument Watch, October 7, 2023, https://monumentwatch.org/en/alerts/azerbaijans-dangerous-statements-and-initiatives/.

39. Ibid.

40. “Google May Remove the Armenian Toponyms of Artsakh from Its Maps at Request of Azerbaijan,” Monument Watch, January 20, 2022, https://monumentwatch.org/en/alerts/google-may-remove-the-armenian-toponyms-of-artsakh-from-its-maps-at-request-of-azerbaijan/.

41. Aliyev, Ilham. 2022. “Speech by Ilham Aliyev at the meeting with a group of intellectuals from Western Azerbaijan.” President.az. https://president.az/en/articles/view/58470.

42. Ibid.

43. “Ադրբեջանի Հանրապետության Ագրեսիվ Քաղաքականության Հերթական Դրսևորումը [Another Aggressive Policy of the Republic of Azerbaijan],” Monument Watch, January 17, 2023, https://monumentwatch.org/hy/alerts/ադրբեջանի-հանրապետության-ագրեսիվ-քա/.

44. Nagif Hamzayev [@hamzanagif], “Return to Western Azerbaijan at the International Level - Georgia Forum Https://T.Co/QBmn64AXgV,” Tweet, Twitter, December 18, 2023, https://twitter.com/hamzanagif/status/1736704120025751695.

45. “UNESCO - What Is Intangible Cultural Heritage?,” UNESCO, accessed December 19, 2023, https://ich.unesco.org/en/what-is-intangible-heritage-00003.

46. “2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Azerbaijan” (Office of International Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State, June 2, 2022), 14, https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/azerbaijan/.

47. Ibid

48. Ibid

49. “The Fundamental Cultural Rights of Armenians of Artsakh Were Violated Because of the Closure of the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor, Resulting Humanitarian Crisis.,” Monument Watch, December 26, 2022, https://monumentwatch.org/en/alerts/the-fundamental-cultural-rights-of-armenians-of-artsakh-were-violated-because-of-the-closure-of-the-berdzor-lachin-corridor-resulting-humanitarian-crisis/.

50. Monument Watch, interview.